Survey Says: Latest Letterman Apology Rates With Viewers

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

No word on how Letterman’s second mea culpa came across Monday night, though it did draw a big crowd, but according to HCD Research, his first one scored higher with viewers than his apology to Sarah Palin over his joke about her daughter.

Letterman’s sex scandal confession, as HCD labels it, scored higher on likeability than his Palin apology (a 4.9 to a 4.5 average score), on believability (5.0 to a 4.3) and sincerity (4.9 to a 4,2).

That is based on a 1 to 7 meter controlled by viewers with their mouse as they watched online video of both, with 1 being “not at all strong” and 7 being “extremely strong.”

The study compared results from HCD’s MediaCurves.com Web site on June 16, after the Palin apology and Oct. 2.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.